Summary: Depression disrupts the body’s stress systems, causing physical health risks like heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, and reducing life expectancy by 7-10 years. The condition triggers brain structure changes,…
Tag: stress
How Stressful Events Alter Memories
Summary: Researchers have discovered how stress disrupts memory specificity, leading to generalized aversive memories—a hallmark of PTSD. Stress increases endocannabinoid release, enlarging memory engrams in the brain, which triggers fearful…
Childhood Stress Disrupts Attention, Sleep, and Dopamine Balance in Adults
Summary: New research links childhood adversity with later attention deficits, sleep disruptions, and specific dopamine imbalances in the brain. Focusing on critical developmental windows, scientists found that disrupted care early…
Gut Bacteria Modulate Stress Responses Over Time
Summary: New research has unveiled how gut bacteria play a key role in regulating stress by interacting with circadian rhythms, opening possibilities for microbiome-based therapies for mental health. Researchers found…
Happy Partners Help Reduce Stress in Older Adults
Summary: Having a happy intimate partner can lower stress levels in older adults by reducing the production of cortisol, a stress hormone. Couples with higher relationship satisfaction experience an even…
Stress Fuels Impulsive Behavior in Response to Boredom
Summary: Research shows a strong link between impulsivity, boredom, and stress, with highly impulsive individuals reacting more to boredom by releasing more of the stress hormone cortisol. This physiological response…
Creative arts therapy programs can help health care workers dance, write and draw their way through burnout and on-the-job stress
Doctors and nurses seldom learn in school how to tell a family that their loved one is not going to survive. Yet health care professionals face the immense burden of…
Knowingly Taking Placebos Reduces Stress and Anxiety
Summary: Researchers have discovered that nondeceptive placebos—placebos given with the full knowledge that they are placebos—can effectively manage stress, even when administered remotely. In a two-week randomized controlled trial, participants…
